"2005"

We all make mistakes. From leisure suits in the ‘70s, to “hypercolor” clothing in the ‘80s, to rat tail haircuts anytime, we Americans are notorious for making choices that seemed like good ideas at the time. Despite our less-than-stellar judgment, we tend to demand more of our finest institutions. In particular, we expect our most prestigious award-givers to choose the right winners. Is that too much to ask? Take the Academy Awards (please!). Today, we thought it might be fun to go back through history and point out the most obvious mistakes in the history of the Oscars. Focusing on past recipients of the three major awards (Best Picture, Actor and Actress), we’ll identify the times when Oscar really fell down on the job. And, sad to say, it’s happened more than once.

I've always loved France, and most everything French. One key reason is the French people's enviable reputation for knowing how to live well. They seem to possess the perspective and confidence to savor all the good things of life: food, wine, romance, and leisure.

As you might expect, I watch all genres of movies all the time, and loving the medium as I do, I pretty much enjoy them all. But I hold a particular affection for a good western. I love the fact that conflicts in these films are framed in fundamental terms: cleaning up a lawless town, or reclaiming stolen land. There’s black and white, and very little gray. And though guns will be drawn and blood spilled, it’s all happening so far away — in both time and distance — that you feel at a safe remove.

Here we go. The holiday parties are over, and once again those of us in northern climes heave an inward sigh and steel ourselves for four months of cold, snow and ice.

Like me, Frances McDormand is not a big fan of the Academy Awards. As she put it in her characteristically wry, plainspoken way: “I don't like award shows. At our house we call this time of year 'the convention'. It's too bad we haven't figured out how to stop it. But I think…because of the Internet… it will naturally go away. We'll have other ways to gather; it's not going to be this stuff. The shoes hurt too much.”

It’s astonishing how many Christmas movies are out there. Just do a Google search and your head will spin. Like movies in general, a few are fabulous, some just okay, while the rest is dreck.

After screening the chilling “Citizenfour” (2014), which details the stranger-than-fiction story of N.S.A whistleblower Edward Snowden, I started thinking about the rich vein of paranoia that movies have tapped in the past relating to surveillance.

Love it or hate it: our system of justice is a large part of what keeps anarchy at bay — and us safe. Deny that if you will. Still, there’s plenty to question and complain about. Like so many of our institutions, sometimes it works, too often it doesn’t. But no one yet has found a better model.